Daily Mac App: iClip

I missed out on iClip during its initial heyday a few years ago, so I was pleased to see it make a comeback. The OS X utility keeps a copy of almost anything that can be sent to the clipboard. It'll also organize those into scrapbooks or however you want.

iClip sits off to the right side of the screen and acts like OS X's dock. It's normally hidden by default, and the preference options are robust and allows you to customize how big the iClip dock is and where on the screen it is. If you have a second display hooked up, you also can set iClip up to be used just on the main display.

When you copy an item to the clipboard, it immediately gets sent to iClip. I had a little trouble distinguishing among the different clips at first. Right clicking an older clip will send it back to either the program you have active or the clipboard so it can be used immediately. Double-clicking on saved URLs automatically takes you back into Safari.

If you select an item and click the arrows next to the individual bubble in iClip, the down arrow will copy it to iClip and the up arrow will send it to the program you're working in. With text, you have the ability to open the clip and edit it as well. You can create a text clip from scratch in this manner as well. You're also supposed to be able to drag and drop clips from one bin to another, but I wasn't able to do that, and that's pretty frustrating.

A program such as iClip can be very useful, and I see myself using it in my design work to keep basic elements at my fingers that aren't always stored in an InDesign library. Some might balk at the price. It runs US$9.99 as an introductory price, and those who are using older versions of iClip will have to pay to upgrade. I think it should probably stay around this price level, if not go down a couple dollars to compete with other programs such as Clipboard History, which is $4.99.